Electric Fence Help

[Welshies]

If no more than 75 feet, that should not be an excessive load for any fence charger. So you have enclosed an area that is less than 20 feet square?

Are you able to test the voltage? Surely you must be to mention it is only putting out 2,000 to 3,000 volts.

If you are able to test, again, what is the fence charger putting out at the fencer.......no wires or ropes connected. Simply the voltage from the hot to ground side of the fencer itself?

No- an area of 500 ft square. However my run is attached to a building, so I do not cover all sides.

 

[Howard E]

OK. Since 20 linear feet square would enclose an area of 400 square feet, with one side of the enclosure a building, that would get to your 500 square feet from 75 or so linear feet of fence.

Still no word on the voltage test, so will leave it with this. Assuming the voltage produced by the fencer itself is at least 5,000 volts........and 7,000 would be better.........but assuming that level of charge with no fence attached, the fencer should be adequate for the job. If you then attach the run of fence and there is a significant voltage drop, most likely the fence is shorting out....grounded out... somewhere. So check every foot of it to make sure is is properly insulated from the posts, ground and the other wire fence it hangs near. It cannot touch anywhere. If it does touch and is grounding out.....even a weed or something.....that will reduce the level of shock you are providing.

The vast majority of the time (assuming it was built right to begin with), when an electric fence fails it is because the level of shock is not high enough to act as a deterrent. Fencer is not large enough to do the job, or fence is either grounded out.......or in some cases, is turned off and user forgets to turn it back on.

With poly tape and polywire, it is also possible for the light wire they braid into these products to break. I had that happen with a poly tape last summer. It looked normal, but there was a break in the wire and the electric fence section beyond the break went cold. I had to cut and splice it and all was well after that. BTW, if you have spliced the polywire, you have to check beyond the splice to make sure it is still hot. A splice......basically a knot.......has to be made in such a way the wires from both ends touch, to transfer the charge past the splice.

The #1 tool to help troubleshoot this type of issue is a fence tester. It days of old, you either grabbed it to test it (ouch) or shorted the fence out to a grounded post with an insulated tool like a screw driver. If it sparked, it was hot. A tester makes this a more pleasant job and provides more useful information than a spark does.